Abstract

Our work is a survey of 35 dairy cattle farms located in three towns in the province of Constantine. The one-pass survey lasted 6 months, from October 2010 to April 2011. The purpose was to characterize the diversity of these farms, and to understand the problems related to their location, infrastructures, equipment, and the process of the dairy workshop, food, staff, cleanness and particularly drug practices likely to cause economic loss. Our survey points out that the majority of farms are built inside agglomerations without the respect of farm management standards and it is also characterized by the cohabitation of cattle with other categories of animals. Furthermore, the abusive use of antibiotics by farmers, an unregulated practice even anarchic without prior reading of the leaflet, and so the non-respect of the dosage and treatment duration. Out of the 35 surveyed farms 77.1% use traditional livestock building maintenance equipment that does not guarantee proper cleaning of animal premises. Amongst the studied farms only 17.1 % are exclusively dairy farms.The dairy herd is composed of 60% dairy cows.